I didn't use the prompt from Napowrimo.net for the first day of National Poetry Month. Instead, I've been having a lot of reoccurring thoughts about working in corporate life, and I prompted this off using a friend's workshop prompts as well as looking at a haiku I wrote a few days ago.
This poem feels very unfinished, but it's definitely a start.
Corporate Confessions
I, sleepless, in the pillows last night
too much noise within myself.
I gulp air, I gulp sleep and become
too full to sleep. Meditate. My phone
tells me to relax, I’m too stressed.
It’s all bullshit. I live and breathe
in the age of anxiety, so I lie sleepless
and give up at 3 AM, go upstairs, and
parse spreadsheets and numbers
into a future I hope I can survive.
Because that is what I do, try to build a future
where revenue is high, while my body slowly
dies from this cancer called profiteering.
Seven years ago, I was the only woman
in the boardroom and I was not impressed
with those leather coated chairs, the table
the size of a New York apartment.
These spaces created for men and money.
And when the men turned to me and asked
what are our next steps with Henderson and the press.
I wanted to tell them, let’s end this, let’s
stop this race towards death. I know they wouldn’t have
wanted to hear any of this. Half of them career
revenue machines. So I gave them what they wanted
to hear. I gave them a clear plan of action
to mitigate the risks in titanium supply.
I have a confession. I’ve done nothing good in this life
except love my husband and daughter and write poetry.
Remember me as the person who didn’t do the right thing,
who still is somehow in denial, and during my exit
interview in the middle of Covid on a Zoom meeting
with my boss’s boss, he told me he would recommend me
if I ever wanted to work there again. I told him
it wouldn’t be necessary. And I left, naïve to believe
I was leaving to do better things, make amends, build
reparations. Look how much of a fool I have been.
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